Recession leaves many travellers unable to spend too much on lodgings
The world’s largest hotel companies, stung by the industry’s biggest declines since the Great Depression, are trying to do for lodging what Ikea did for furniture: offer fashionable products at low prices.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc, the third-biggest US lodging company, is developing boutique hotels for frugal travellers that cost about US$119 a night. That’s a far cry from the US$399 to US$639 at the company’s upscale W Hotels.
InterContinental Hotels Group plc is following a similar strategy with its boutique chain Hotel Indigo.
Both companies are seeking to capitalise on a formula popularised in the 1980s, when small, individual properties with luxury amenities, designer interiors and quirky decor gained in popularity among travellers. This time, the demand for affordable, fashionable lodgings was fuelled by a global recession that left many people unable or unwilling to spend as much on vacations.
‘You mix the luxury elements into the lower-priced product and it’s fair to presume that what’s more value-driven is faring much better during the downturn and beyond,’ said David Katz, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co in New York.
The top four US hotel companies reported revenue declines of 16 per cent to 22 per cent for the first nine months after rising unemployment dented consumer spending. Room rates will probably fall in 2010 for the second straight year as hotel owners offer discounts to lure customers, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
Hotel operators are also battling a drop in business travel as companies try to save money. There has been a backlash against lavish spending by banks, insurers and carmakers that were given government financial assistance, discouraging them from using expensive hotels for conferences and conventions.
The chains are designed for travellers who want a unique hotel experience without spending US$500 a night.
Starwood’s W Hotels, a boutique chain started in the late 1990s, are equipped with 400-thread count organic cotton Percale duvet covers by Swedish designer Anki Spets. The beds also have feather pillow-topped mattresses and leather headboards. Some lobbies are furnished with Philippe Starck pieces, such as Louis XV-style chairs that sell for US$410 at the hotel’s store.
At Starwood’s Aloft chain, the company’s limited-service boutique brand, things are more spartan.
In Rancho Cucamonga, California, the Aloft is contemporary without the designer labels. Bedding is 200-thread count and only a handful of managers maintain the property. A dozen or more service W locations, according to Kimberly Ervin, director of sales. Instead of being stocked with expensive wines and spirits, the small refrigerators in each Aloft room are empty. The showers have shampoo and shower gel dispensers attached to the wall. Headboards are made of cork while a cowhide print, rather than the actual hide, graces the wall.
The public spaces exude cool. Modern alternative pop echoes through the 325 square-metre lobby. The music can even be heard under water in the outdoor pool.
The Aloft in Rancho Cucamonga offered rooms as low as US$99 a night recently, according to the chain’s Web site.
‘The demand for alternatives to the sameness of chain hotels has been growing and will continue to grow,’ said Marc Gordon, president of Morgans Hotel Group Co. ‘Limited-service boutiques speak to an increasing part of the population that prefer alternative hotels to large chain hotels.’ Those people may prefer to stay in stylish, quirky hotels without paying top prices, Mr Gordon said.
The Morgans’s namesake boutique hotel on Madison Avenue boasts an elegant lobby with armchairs and tables by 1930s designer Jean-Michel Frank. The lobby at its Mondrian hotel on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood features a swing. A standard room there for a mid-week stay was advertised at US$275 a night, according to the Mondrian’s Web site.
Average daily room rates at boutique hotels dropped 22 per cent in January through September compared with a 9.1 per cent decline across all US hotel segments, according to Hendersonville, Tennessee-based Smith Travel Research.
A lack of financing forced Starwood to cut its original goal of starting 500 Aloft hotels by 2012. The White Plains, New York-based company still expects to open 40 outlets by the end of this year and another 11 next year, including three in India, according to Brian McGuinness, senior vice-president of specialty select brands.
At IHG’s budget boutique chain, Hotel Indigo, rooms feature dark hardwood floors and tall beds loaded with decorative pillows. There are currently 34 hotels in operation and as many as 15 will be added in 2010, according to Janis Cannon, vice-president of global brand management for Indigo. Prices at some of the properties range from US$69 to US$204 a night, according to the Hotel Indigo Web site.
The increasing number of boutique hotels may swamp the market. Marriott International Inc is working on its own full- service boutique chain, named Edition, and plans to open the first two in Waikiki, Hawaii, and Istanbul next year, according to Don Semmler, executive vice-president of brand management. Marriott is also planning a new luxury brand called the Autograph Collection.
‘There’s a huge eruption of boutique brands,’ said David Loeb, an analyst at Robert W Baird & Co. ‘True luxury boutique hotels with impeccable service will come out as the winners, while those that look like luxury boutique hotels but are staffed with young, hip 20-something year-olds who are dressed in black and are indifferent to customers won’t.’
Source: Business Times, 8 Dec 2009
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